


Scars

by Chericola



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Trauma, post-kh3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 19:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13794927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chericola/pseuds/Chericola
Summary: After the war is finally over, Terra is left with scars that he does not want.





	Scars

His first memory after his return is waking up in Master Yen Sid’s tower with his head resting on Aqua’s lap and his hands each gripped tightly by Ven and Aqua. Their faces are the first thing he sees. Ven is grinning; Aqua’s eyes shine with tears even as she smiles at them both. His own eyes sting. After everything that’s happened, it’s hard to believe that this is real and not an illusion meant to taunt him. But they’re here and so is he and they’re holding hands and this is real. It’s all that really matters in the end.

For the first few weeks after he’s reclaimed his body, he can’t speak, or move, or do literally anything without assistance. After being possessed for so long, he’s not used to controlling his own body and must re-learn how to almost from scratch.

(It doesn’t help that the possession also put a strain on his body. His muscles feel like they’ve been beaten and worn-down; his throat and voicebox ache dreadfully; and his limbs feel numb in the absence of the leaden weight of invisible strings he’d become used to.) 

It takes him a week to even begin to speak again; three more until he’s strong enough to start walking. Ven and Aqua refuse to leave his side throughout all of it. He’s grateful for that, though he can’t help feeling a bit guilty. Like he doesn’t deserve their devotion. (Maybe he doesn’t. It doesn’t really matter, because they’re not leaving him even if he asks them to.) 

He tries to apologize for the mistakes he’d made that led them to their respective fates. They only shake their heads.

‘We all made mistakes,’ Ven says. ‘It wasn’t just you.’

‘What matters is that we’re together now,’ Aqua adds. She holds out her wayfinder on her out-stretched palm. ‘Together, always,’ she says firmly. ‘Always.’

He and Ven hold out their own wayfinders. The three of them glow faintly underneath the bedroom light.

‘Always,’ they agree. 

ooooo

The nightmares begin a week after the battle. Most of the time they’re about Xehanort, and his time as his vessel. Darkness pressing on him, threatening to consume him. His body acting of its own accord, committing unspeakable acts. And, maybe worst of all, that feeling of losing himself piece by piece, of becoming him. 

He wakes up with a sobbing cry on his lips, startling Aqua and Ven. They’re not asleep, to his relief. Aqua’s on one side of him, keyblade gripped tightly in her hand. Her gaze darts across the room they’d been allocated, searching for Heartless. Ven isn’t as tense as Aqua—he’s lying on his back on Terra’s other side, his arm brushing lightly against Terra’s. Even so, he won’t close his eyes. He doesn’t want to fall into another ten-year-long sleep, he claims.

Whatever troubles they have, they put them aside to help Terra, immediately reaching for him to calm him down and bring him back to himself. With his hands gripped in theirs, he feels safer, more grounded. The fear of Xehanort fades away and he remembers where he really is. 

Even after they’ve returned to the Land of Departure, they sleep together in one bed. It’s more comforting for all of them, even months after Xehanort’s final defeat. One night, after a particularly bad nightmare, Terra wakes up to feel someone gently shaking his arm. Panic seizes him, and he just reacts, knocking them off the bed. Someone cries out in surprise; still mostly asleep, he doesn’t take much notice of it. 

Moments later, he turns to see Aqua crouched on the floor. She glares at him with wild eyes, her entire body trembling. Her keyblade is gripped between whitened fingers.

‘Terra, I’m sorry,’ she says. He closes his eyes as she leaps at him. Her keyblade slashes his chest, sharp and searing, and he (or Xehanort) cries out in rage. When he touches it, though, there’s nothing there. That brings him back to himself. He finds himself in his room, Aqua sitting beside him on the bed. He’s crying—when did he start crying? He clings to Aqua as if for dear life—he can feel Aqua doing the same to him, and can feel the hotness of her tears as her head rests against his chest.

‘I’m sorry,’ Aqua repeats. Her hand gently brushes against his chest, where the faded diagonal scar lies hidden underneath his shirt. ‘I had to do it.’ 

‘I know,’ he whispers. He would’ve killed her, otherwise. Or rather, Xehanort would have. What she did saved him, even if it also left him with a raised scar on his chest as well as countless others on the remainder of his body. He’ll forever be grateful for that alone. 

ooooo

He avoids looking in mirrors for months after the battle, lest he see the permanent marks Xehanort’s possession has left on him. Streaks of silver in his brown hair; slightly pointed ears. They don’t go away after the old master has left his body. Aqua and Ven assure him that they don’t care, that he’s still Terra to them and always will be, but even so he can’t help feeling like a complete stranger sometimes.

His voice is deeper than it used to be—a mix of his and Xemnas’. (It’s a horrible shock, to those who knew Xemnas before; he can’t blame them for subtly avoiding him during that first year after Xehanort’s defeat.) His handwriting will never be the same, either.

Even the habitual tics than he’d had before are foreign to him now. It all leaves him feeling even more that he’s come back to a body that is no longer his.

It’s hard not to feel angry, and bitter. After everything, after thirteen years of psychological torture and imprisonment inside his own body, it’s hard not to think that Xehanort has still won. He hadn’t wanted to spend the rest of his damned life with the physical reminders of his possessed years and the mistakes he’d made that had brought him—them– to that point. 

But, as he lies in bed, sandwiched between a sleeping Aqua and Ven, peace and contentment envelops him. Ven’s curled against his back, and Aqua’s resting with her head on his chest and her body curled toward his. He can feel Aqua’s heartbeat and Ven’s gentle breathing on either side of him, and any bitterness and pain he has feels like a faraway, lost dream. And he admits to himself that for all the difficulties his new life may pose, he’s just glad he can be with them.


End file.
